Analysis of Media Coverage of the Summers Controversy - Essay Example

Analysis of Media Coverage of the Summers’ Controversy The former president of Harvard University, Larry Summers attended a conference on minorities and women in engineering and science in 2005, where he unwittingly sparked contention about representation of women in the disciplines of science and mathematics. In the conference that sought to address the issue of diversity in academia, Summers presented his hypothesis suggesting the scarcity of women in specific disciplines could be attributable to their inherent mathematical and scientific inability. The then president of Harvard went on to state that available scientific evidence showed a disparity in the variability and standard deviation of a female and male populace. Summers emphasized that this evidential difference between men and women in sciences could not be overlooked. The media blew Summers’ remarks out of proportion in the ensuing controversy, reporting that the academic was a chauvinist, who upheld the notion that women are naturally inferior to men. In my opinion, the media framed and perpetuated the controversy, missing out on the fact that he was hypothesizing on the significant gap between men and women, while trying to provoke further research into the issue. Summers was wrong to state that women are inherently inferior to men, since he did not have any scientific evidence to prove this; further, his tendency to understate the role of gender and socialization in the same, lowers the credibility of his hypotheses. Summers' controversial remarks were first published in the Boston Globe newspaper. The paper primarily focused on the Harvard president’s second suggestion on the potential cause for fewer female representatives in sciences. This statement quoted Summers stating that males attain higher test scores in science and math than females. He continued to say that although nobody could explain this occurrence, studies in behavioral genetics shows that aspects usually attributed to conditioning or socialization could actually be based on biology. The Boston Globe reported that conference participants said that in making this point, Larry Summers was implying that women do not possess the same scientific and mathematical ability as men. The newspaper failed to report Summers’ remarks within the context he had applied. For instance, there was no emphasis of the fact that the Harvard president had mentioned other underrepresented groups. The paper was also not emphatic on Summers’ first point, which suggested that women were not adequately represented in higher echelons of academia because of their familial responsibilities and inability to work long hour weeks. The popular Boston newspaper also failed to underscore the academic’s third point, about women being discriminated against, while filling vacant faculty positions. The Globe further reported that a female biologist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in attendance had to leave the symposium, claiming that if she could have opted to stay she might have fainted or purged. The outlook adopted by the Boston Globe was dominant in mainstream mass media, instigating national debate. For example, the Los Angeles Times cited a computer scientist from Yale, Gelernter, stating that, Summers remarks meant that, on average, women are not as good as men at mathematics and science. According to this newspaper’s conservative commentator, Summers implied that even though the average capabilities of women and men were similar, there would still be more males than females in elite job levels requiring mathematical or scientific ability. Apparently, the same would apply to low levels of the same disciplines. Following pressure from the media and interested members of the public, Larry Summers later released the transcript detailing his actual speech during the conference. In response, a Boston Globe article fuelled the controversy by including reactions of two scientists. One was a psychology professor, Steven Pinker, who approved Summers’ speech applauding it as masterful and supported by scientific literature. The other psychology professor cited by the Globe was Elizabeth Spelke, who strongly disagreed with Summers’ speculations, stating explicitly that there is no evidence for biological influence based on her research and that of other scientists. The aspects that newspapers chose to focus upon were undoubtedly similar to those discussed by Larry Summers, although the purported “inherent inability” of women to comprehend science and math was highly publicized than other elements of the speech. This became evident following the release of the speech transcript. Larry had begun his conference speech by clearly stating that, he had been requested by the organizers to present a provocative lecture. He then made note of the fact that, even though he was about to address the underrepresentation of women in top science teaching posts, women were not the only category of people that suffered underrating, consequently contributing to role model shortage. The academician cited other categories of underrepresented populations, including Caucasian males in the NBA, Jews in agriculture and Catholics in investment banking. Shifting his attention toward the subject of women in scientific fields, Summers stated that the reason for the gap was the same as that, which prevents women from filling executive posts in top ranked professions. Therefore, unlike most newspaper reports indicated, the scholar cited familial responsibilities and lower commitment to careers as the primary reason for fewer women in science-based professions. Summers cited research and his personal parenting as proof for this hypothesis. In making his second point, he further emphasized that gender differences observed even at a tender age, cannot be entirely attributed to socialization. This is where controversy sparked; since he went on to question whether institutions were making proper demands on people. This appeared to be an implication that society was imposing irrational expectations for women to perform equally in sciences, yet it is a feat they cannot achieve because they are possibly biologically inferior to men. In regard to his final causative factor of gender gap in sciences, Summers briefly addressed the issue of discrimination. However, he presented this concern in a skeptic manner, stating that if indeed there was extensive discrimination as cited by many female scientists, then there would be equally many opportunities to be filled by the few people that were unprejudiced and ready to amass highly qualified departments. This clearly shows that Summers downplayed the role that discrimination in denying women opportunities to advance in science and mathematics fields. The intellectual repeatedly referred to studies by Yu Xie a sociologist in the University of Michigan and Kimberlee Shauman, also a sociologist, who found out that females constitute 35% of faculty in universities around America, with only 20% of them in engineering and science. While it was pertinent to his speech that he cited these statistics, Summers failed to realize that the studies did not support his hypothesis that women are innately unable to excel in sciences. While addressing the issue of discrimination, the academician mentioned that institutions like Harvard, of which he was president, were working toward creating equal opportunities for both men and women. Summers gave this re-assurance despite the fact that every year since he became Harvard’s president in the year 2001, the proportion of women granted faculty jobs had declined. In the preceding academic year, just four out of 32 tenured job slots were offered to women. Even though Summers may have drawn scholars’ attention to the crucial issue of women underrepresentation in engineering and science university faculties, he did not aid in explicating the issue. For someone who is supposed to act as a role model, the academician failed to explore the subject in a scholarly manner. Majority of Summers’ remarks were made from a personal point of view with little supporting evidence. I do not think that Summers was adequately equipped to talk about gender-linked career patterns, since he is not an expert in the field. To compensate for this, he should have consulted specialists in the relevant fields of sociology and biology, in order to acquire a scientific basis for his remarks. Alternatively, Summers should have explored extra research on the issue, in order to get all possible perspectives about women’s disproportionate representation in science-based professions. Further, the Harvard president failed to provide statistical evidence on his assertion, which is crucial to forming a valid academic argument, albeit hypothetical. As seen in the analysis of Summers’ speech, he downplayed the aspect of discrimination and its intricacies. He even went ahead and stated that socialization does not explain most of the differences observed between males and females. This statement clearly overlooked scientific studies like Sadker, Sadker and Zittleman’s (373), which have extensively explored the relationship between culture, gender bias and education in diverse disciplines. These scholars show that gender socialization plays a critical role in determining the subjects that both boys and girls opt for in school curricula, from elementary school through college or university. Summers’ hypothesis that women are naturally unsuited to the study of science also overlooks the fact that, many women have engaged actively in scientific fields throughout history. This is shown by Schiebinger (23-35) in her exploration of the limited representation of women in sciences. The author notes that women were participating in scientific studied, as early as the 16th century. However, they were increasingly excluded from science, through actual restriction and relegation to domestic chores and other supposedly feminine duties. Women’s contributions to science were also left out of record. Institutions also limited women’s access to education and only the aristocratic women were able to gain insight into the intellectual world by demanding help from academics in lower classes. Schiebinger (46-53) further explores gender through a biological perspective, indicating that during the period prior to renaissance, women were seen to be inferior to men due to their fundamental physical differences. The author’s chronological analysis of scientific revolution and women involvement clearly shows that, culture and gender constructs have always prevented women from exploring intellectual and scientific pursuits. These studies show that Summers should have made an attempt to examine the implications of culture, gender and discrimination, in involvement of women in scientific disciplines. The media clearly hyperbolized Summers’ remarks on the gender gap between women and men in tenured scientific jobs. However, his hypothesis that women are innately inferior to men was scientifically unfounded and he overlooked gender conditioning and socialization in building his argument. The academician clearly did not examine the labor force issues in his own university, prior to posing his inherent inability hypothesis. This was evident from the restricted offer of jobs to women, particularly during his tenure. Following Summers’ controversial remarks and later departure from Harvard, the university got its first female president, and additional women as faculty members. Though not conclusive, this shows that labour force attributes can serve as data on gender essentialism. Works Cited Sadker, David, Sadker Myra and Zittleman Karen. Still Failing at Fairness: How Gender Bias Cheats Boys and Girls at School and what We Can Do About It. New York, NY: Scribner. 2009. Print. Schiebinger, Londa. The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. 1991. Print. French, David. The Summers Transcript. Web. 1 February 2014. Read More